Untitled A ToddLovett oneshot
by BeneathTheVeil
Summary: It wasn't something she would normally do. Todd/Lovett in one shot.


Title: Untitled  
Author: Hannahharriet  
Rating: pg-13  
Pairing: Todd/Lovett  
Warnings: Blood.  
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, quite obviously. 'Tis only a mere bit of entertainment for me to hang on to. Character descriptions based partially off of the Burton movie and partially off of my own meanderings.

It was not something that she would normally do.

Thunder, groaning outside in an endless surge, and lightning, striking so close to the city that the white light emanating from it appeared to cast daylight against the brick wall, filled the room in spurts of energy. It was cold…and dark. Mist loomed, as it often did over London, and the windows shook and clouded with the repetition of thunder and vapor slipping over them. And yet there was no rain. The skies were crowded with midnight blue clouds, gray mixing with black and blue mixing with the white light the city cast up into the heavens. It was, indeed, a storm, but it was not ready to unleash its full fury.

Pale hands, silk to the touch and yet dirty with the stain of flour, gripped at bunched velvet. Mrs. Lovett was not one to be scared by a simple storm, and that was not what was drawing her up into the confines of her gloomy attic. Her eyes were black, sparkling, the pupils shifting slightly against the blackness of the wall. She knew it was there - a door - but her eyes would not adjust to the lack of light in the darkened room.

Her hair was a mop of tangled strands. It had been for years. The brown, as she had aged, mixed with a fiery red, and with it, later still, a flaxen tinge, until her locks had become beautiful in the rarest sense. Her face was pale, her cheeks high and hardly rouged. Her eyes were lined, not with the rich creams of the affluent women, but with the years of soot and stress that came with her early widowing. Her lips were scarlet, and her chin pointed in a lovely manner, but one could not call her pretty, at least not in the traditional way. She was pretty, in a macabre sense, in the way that death can enamor the living, but in no way could she be called beautiful. Traces of her past were beautiful, her eyes were beautiful, but her beauty had been swept away in the changing of the years.

Lightning struck, thunder clanked, and she opened her eyes wide. Her hand, outlined in a black lace glove, traced over the splintered wood of a chest near the wall. Floorboards creaked, and she scolded herself for not keeping the room in repair. Not that it mattered. It seemed that the grunge amused her guest.

She gasped inwardly when her hand met a sharp edge. Through the sound of the beginning drops of rain on the window, she could faintly hear the fine lace slit open and rip. She cursed to herself. The chill of the room hit her bare hand, and with it, a streak of wetness. She lifted her hand, a pale sort of pain igniting on her palm. She held it to the light. Blood. Her own. Starting to drip down past her wrist and staining the open fabric.

She wiped the wound down her skirt, dismissing it, and searched blindly for the object she knew to be there. In moments, and several splinters later, she found the cold metal. Taking the object in her hand, she lifted it and gingerly pulled its lethal blade down into the handle. Engraving covered it, trees and vines and a single woman, peering at forbidden fruit.

She held the object to her cheek, to her neck. It was frigid, but she did not observe that. It did not matter to her. Nothing mattered to her. Nothing…except for him.

Mrs. Lovett placed the razor back into its case on the vanity table, not taking notice at the red stains on the oak furniture. She closed it, the velvet soft under her fingers and red with the streak of crimson that smeared from her hand. She cringed. But he would not notice. He never did.

Her pupils moved in a sweeping motion towards the door. The rain was beating steadily, a rhythm that almost matched that of her heart. She had not noticed it until then…that pounding ache in her chest. She clutched her wounded hand against the bare skin of her chest, willing her legs to move to the shadowed side of the room.

It was surprisingly simple to open the door. No lock was in place to keep an intruder from entering. Nor was there a candle to illuminate the outlines of the old furniture. The only trace of the man lying in the bed was the faint sound of the ancient mattress squeaking as he breathed. It was a breath that could only mean sleep. She let the stiff muscles in her shoulders relax.

And yet she could not cross that threshold. It was another darkness entirely in this room. The shadows from the previous one lit the walls in an eerie way, gray streaks cascading on the ripped and chipping wallpaper. Her hand found the knob, and she leaned, his form a mystery in the gloom.

His hand moved in his sleep. She knew that hand - knew it well. It was rough and calloused against hers. It was warm on her waist as they waltzed through her shop. It was cold as it touched her cheek and forced her against a wall. She gazed at it, as he slept, and could not move any further.

He shifted, his face visible through the depths of the room. She knew his eyes, though hidden now. She knew their dark stare. And she loved how they penetrated her own. She loved his lips, how they moved as he spoke. She wanted nothing more than to touch them. She even loved his hair, the mass of it, and how it smelled of musk and pepper.

Memories filled her. Him and her, dancing. Her, leaning over him in an attempt, any attempt, to get closer. His arm around her neck, her, lost between fright and love and starvation. Blood, bright as could be, streaking the walls of the room. The thud of a corpse rolling down to the grated floor. Smells, and sounds, and sights inhuman. Her stomach would churn. Her heart would tie in knots. Anything for the man she -

Loved. She moved across the room, hand poised, chest heaving, what little color had already been there gone from her face. Lightning struck. Thunder rattled, directly over them now. Shadows danced and rain finally poured. She moved to him, she brushed the linen away. Red streaks flew across her mind, painting her memories in shades of crimson. She leaned down. Shrieks and gurgling and a sense of horror…nothing mattered. She was not who she used to be. Her lips parted. The thumping of her heart against her chest…of his heart against her hand. They touched.

It was not something that she would normally do.


End file.
